Cover To Cover
by Your Angel of Music
Summary: The Melanie that stares seductively outwards from the glossy folds of the magazine is a new Melanie. A Melanie that was stored quietly away before Lindsay appeared on her horizon. A Melanie that Lindsay had never really known existed until now.


**Title:** Cover to Cover**  
Fandom:** Queer as Folk**  
Characters:** Lindsay Peterson, Melanie Marcus, Gus Peterson-Marcus, Jenny-Rebecca Peterson-Marcus**  
Pairings****: **Lindsay/Melanie**  
Rating/Warnings:** Adult – rated for sex, swearing, sex, nudity and sex. All the good stuff, basically.

**Summary:** The Melanie that stares seductively outwards from the glossy folds of the magazine is a new, and fresh, and different, and exciting Melanie. A Melanie that was stored quietly away before Lindsay appeared on her horizon. A Melanie that Lindsay had never really known existed until now.

**A/N:** It took me two years to gather the courage to write sex/smut for the Torchwood fandom and the Jack/Ianto pairing. I still have not gathered the courage to write sex/smut for the Christian/Syed pairing in EastEnders. And yet, in my first forray into the world of Queer as Folk fanfiction and the Mel/Linz pairing, I find myself drowning in a world of smut. Why is that? Whatever the reason, this is my first attempt at fanfiction for this particular fandom, so I really do hope it is passable.

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**Cover To Cover**

'_I thought you didn't like porn.'_

'_I don't_.'

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Lindsay wasn't lying when she told Melanie that she hated porn.

She did.

There was something about it that had always seemed somewhat artificial. A fakery that took any arousal she may have had and threw a bucket of ice water over it. It just lacked the true emotional experience that she had always found to be more of a turn on than silicone breasts and fakely-dripping cunts and – well – everything that was ultimately just the _mechanics_. And, lesbian or not, she'd never been too interested in operating heavy machinery

She'd been shocked to learn and to see the evidence of Mel's brief dabble into that world; to see, perhaps, the human reality of that which she had previous thought of as sordid and wrong. It had niggled in her mind only for a while, sparking the briefest of discussions and the easiest of resolutions between them. It wasn't something they never talked about again; it wasn't something that _mattered_, not really.

Which begged the question: why had she kept it?

Despite her own assurances that it didn't matter, she had kept a tight hold on that magazine. Like a precious, rare treasure she had stored it away beneath the bed, its corners well-thumbed, its spine broken and lined and the cover - the word _Oui _scrawled out in tacky lettering amidst the supposedly-enticing mix of skin and nipples and flesh – smudged by the grasping hold of her fingers.

Melanie didn't know that those pictures of her younger self remained hidden beneath the mattress; that the mattress on which they lay and slept and laughed and fucked and made love was hiding the secrets of a time before this, before _them_. Lindsay didn't want her to find out. It was something that Mel was obviously not ashamed of but, nevertheless, it was something she saw as completely separate from the life she had carved for herself now.

She didn't want it to have any sway or place in the life she had with Lindsay, with Gus, with Jenny-Rebecca, with their friends and their families whether in Pittsburgh or in Canada or anywhere else.

It was the only real secret that Lindsay had ever kept from the woman she loved.

She didn't know why she kept it. Maybe it was a power thing; the awful realisation that other men and women had drooled, and touched themselves, and come with Melanie's name on their lips and body in their minds, had inspired a wave of possessive jealousy.

Every time Lindsay flicked through the pictures, her hand buried beneath the waistband of her jeans and her orgasm washing through her at the familiar, yet oh-so-much younger body on those pages, she felt as though she was reclaiming what was rightly her's. Sending out a message to all those others, those strangers, those insignificants that she had done it too – and she was the one that lay beside the woman in question every night.

It was stupid, but it was a triumph. And Lindsay had long since learned to relish the small victories.

In those awful, long months of their separation, it was that single magazine that had somehow kept her rooted in her sanity. She could pretend, for a few brief moments, that the body she was looking at was pressed against her; that the fingers seeking and searching inside her were those that were captured forever on the glossy pages; that those pursed, plump lips were not static but moving on her and around her and inside of her…

It got her through with some semblance of sanity. It wasn't ideal, but it was enough to stop her from running screaming and screeching down the street. It was enough to stop her from shutting down completely. It was enough to keep her in the state where she could still look after her son and pretend to him that everything was okay, it was all okay, it was, it _was_…

Even now (in a new house, in a new county, in a new _life_) as Mel sleeps beside her – her back is turned, as it always is, affording her some sense of privacy as if she _knows_ what Lindsay is doing – she finds herself thumbing through the dog-eared magazine. It opens naturally on the right page, the material crumpled and her fingertips imprinted on the images of Mel's naked body. The naked body that Lindsay really doesn't know – the naked body that existed _before_ she was _this_ Mel. Before Lindsay could claim any kind of ownership (if she could ever claim to have ownership at all).

Because that's what it is, really. Getting to know the Mel beneath the lawyer, beneath the mother, beneath the wife, beneath the protector – to see the Mel of youthfulness and college study and wild motorbike rides with Leda. The Mel that she's only heard spoken of as some kind of myth, unreachable and unattainable and, yet, right here in front of her on the page.

The Melanie that stares seductively outwards from the glossy folds of the magazine is a new, and fresh, and different, and exciting Melanie. A Melanie that was stored quietly away before Lindsay appeared on her horizon. A Melanie that Lindsay had never really known existed until now.

This is Mel as _Mel_.

This is Mel before she was one half of _Mel and Linz_.

It's a fact, Lindsay knows, that the Mel she loves is only one segment of the Mel that lives beside her every day. It's as if there are two different versions of Melanie Marcus; and Mel thinks that one of them is so deeply buried that it is of no consequence to her anymore. She has moved on from it. Melanie Marcus, the wild schoolgirl and model for pornographic magazines, is not the same as the Melanie Marcus who works for a law firm, who feeds a baby, who provides for her son and who loves Lindsay Peterson.

She doesn't realise that Lindsay knows that part of her more intimately than she could ever imagine.

Because Lindsay loves the whole of Melanie. Every last inch of her being, every last molecule of her soul – even that part of her that she can only access through a magazine.

Lindsay Peterson loves Melanie Marcus.

Cover to cover.

FIN

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Thank you for reading.

My God, these two a _hot_. Sorry, I'm ever so slightly obsessed with them. I love them. If you have any comments or suggestions or remarks of any kind, I would love to hear them!


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